No one tells you how hard it is to hold love and pain in the same hand.
Not one, then the other. Both. Always.
When your child dies, the world splits in two:
The life you had, and the one you’re left with.
And in this new life, everything beautiful feels wrapped in something sharp.
At 3.5 years, it’s a little lighter.
But even saying that feels risky—like admitting lightness means losing more.
That’s the trap: how do you allow yourself to keep living, when surviving already feels like betrayal?
You don’t choose between love or pain.
You carry them together.
You laugh with tears in your throat.
You feel joy and guilt at once.
You dream again—cautiously.
This isn’t “moving on.”
This is love.
The kind that keeps pulsing even after everything else stops.
It hurts because it mattered.
And it still does.
—
I don’t write this because I’m healed.
I write it because I’m learning—slowly, with hesitation—how to let light in without letting go.
Maybe that’s all any of us can do.